When it hits your eye like a big pizza pie - that's supermoon amore

By Theresa Braine

|New York Daily News|

Feb 17, 2019 | 6:00 PM

A super blue blood moon sets behind the Golden Gate Bridge Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018, in San Francisco. It's the first time in 35 years a blue moon has synced up with a supermoon and a total lunar eclipse, or blood moon because of its red hue. (Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP)

One of the best sky spectacles of 2019 is imminent: The February full moon will take place at the moon’s closest point to Earth for the year, making it 14% bigger – which, while only subtly discernible to the naked eye, will nevertheless impart an extra umph – that proverbial pizza pie in the eye, to paraphrase the song crooned by the late Dean Martin.

It’s what happens when the moon reaches perigee, the technical name for that closest point. (Its opposite is apogee, the farthest point.).

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This is the second of three consecutive supermoons, according to Space.com, and while it won’t be as spectacular as the super blood wolf moon lunar eclipse of January, it won’t be a slouch.

For one thing, it will appear full for three days running, according to NASA – Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. For another, it’s the last full moon of winter.

“The moon's average distance from Earth is 238,855 miles, but its orbit isn't perfectly circular, so that distance varies a small amount,” explains Space.com. “When the moon reaches its closest perigee of the year on Feb. 19, it will be 221,681 miles away from Earth.”

This 17,000-mile difference lends a subtle but nuanced difference in viewing, making the full moon just after Valentine’s Day that much more magical.

The moon will actually reach perigee about six hours before the exact moment it reaches fullness, but that will not dampen the view. Actual fullness will arrive during the daylight hours – 10:53 a.m. on Tuesday, to be exact – but this will just make it look super full on Monday as well as Tuesday.

The moon will rise on Tuesday between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time, according to Timeanddate.com.

Astronomer Richard Nolle coined the term “supermoon” in 1979, according to USA Today, and it has been increasingly popularized ever since.

Other names include the snow moon, and a slew of names attributed to indigenous peoples. The Ojibwe, for one, call it the namebini-giizis, or Sucker Fish Moon, after a source of winter sustenance, notes the website American Indian Moons.